The Java final keyword: does it improve performance?

A common misconception I have come across is the idea that use of the Java final keyword
is primarily a performance issue. The idea may have originated from other languaes where
the final keyword may invoke a performance difference, and will usually be sold to
you along the lines of: "If you make your class/method final, then the compiler can
use extra optimisation". Chances are that the person in question isn't clear about
the exact details of the optimisation in question or
whether "the compiler" means the bytecode compiler or the JIT compiler. They probably haven't
actually seen either any raw bytecode or any JIT-compiled assembler to back up their claim.

Now, I may be being slightly unfair in my criticism, because it's possible that some
JVM somewhere implements an optimisation based on the final keyword1. But to the best
of my knowledge, there are no class/method optimisations in Hotspot based on whether
or not a class or method is final.
In a discussion with members of the Hotspot compiler team back in 2005, they confirmed this
was already the case then. And below, I present some performance data from a recent version of
Hotspot indicating that this is still the case.

But if you think about it, we'd actually expect it to be the case. Even if you propose
an optimisation based on whether or not a method/class has been overridden or extended, at any
given moment in time, the JVM knows whether it has been overridden/extended or not.
There's no need for the JVM to rely on the presence of any final marker added by the
programmer to tell it whether or not to apply a particular optimisation!

There are optimisations implemented by Hotspot (and presumably other common JVMs)
which rely on the JIT compiler being able to predict the exact subclass of a given object
at a given point of execution. But those optimisation don't rely on the class/method being
marked as final.

1. Some earlier bytecode compilers did erroneously choose to inline
methods based on whether they were final. This optimisation turned out to be incorrect
and is probably not present in any recent compilers.